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Strategy, Investment Portfolio, Governance and Risk Consulting Services
In medieval times and other societies, the court jester could speak frankly on controversial issues in a way in which no-one else could. Monarchs understood the usefulness of having such a person at their side, being empowered to ask the obvious questions and challenge reason without the prospect of any other agenda being in play. This recognised the value of having someone ask the “stupid questions” through the application of common sense.
Times haven’t changed. The Jester is the original trusted advisor.
Business evolves. In theory it’s as simple as writing a plan and then delivering against it, but life isn’t like that, unless you can stop your business for six month to plan and see into the future. Changing needs of stakeholders and customers, learning and an ever-changing business environment mean that the one thing we can be certain of is that our plans are wrong. As Eisenhower said “plans are useless, but planning is invaluable”.
That’s what we believe is the key, it’s the questions that your business asks and clarity of the decisions that are made that are important. Getting this right is how businesses move forward, learning from the past and building for the future.
Do any of these things occur in your business?
- Processes are followed “because that’s the way it’s always been done”
- Nobody really knows what the strategy is
- Projects are running to deliver “something” the business doesn’t need
- People attend meetings – but aren’t quite sure why they are there
If they do, we believe we can help. There is a need for open observation and advice, outside of structure and therefore not motivated in any particular way. We focus on good questions, good decisions, good governance and underpin this with the application and support of sound project, program and portfolio management disciplines.
Please look at our services section and if there are some challenges in your business that you’d like to chat through, please give us a call or send through an email. We’d love to have a coffee and a chat and sometimes, it’s as simple as that. If you need more help of course, we’d be happy to help you with that too.
Testimonial
Jester Consulting assisted TransLink in implementing investment, program and project capabilities over a twelve month period. This was one of 12 transformational priorities for the business. Jester Consulting focused on helping TransLink get our governance models right so that we could ensure that we had effective control in the programs that we deliver, and are involved in, to achieve our strategic mandate.
As a result of this work, TransLink achieved Australian Institute of Project Management “Project Managed Organisation” status in February 2010. Far from being an end point, Jester Consulting’s approach has ensured that the TransLink team has taken ownership of the approaches that were implemented and benefits from this work continue to be realised.
Peter Strachan, CEO, TransLink Transit Authority
About Jester Consulting
Jester Consulting was established by Richard Gaunt and is very much a business built on personal experience and philosophy.
“As a student my advanced maths teacher spent 2 years not teaching us advanced maths. What he actually taught us, for the long term, was how to respectfully challenge authority.”
“Every so often, Mr Williams would spend 15 minutes logically explaining some kind of complex equation with his usual conviction. Then one of us would utter the catch-cry “Don’t believe you. Prove it.”, and would be rewarded with a wry smile as we had exposed a quarter hours logical nonsense.”
Subsequent experience as an exploration geologist and in establishing a number of program offices, including 2 of Australia’s 22 Project Managed Organisations, have reinforced the need to have an objective view, never take things on face value and provide open advice.
This is the foundation of Jester Consulting. We believe that we help you the most with truly understanding your challenges and strategies, understanding the right work to do to address them and enabling your business to achieve the work.
